page_title: Elastic Love
section_title: Background and development
hierarchical_section_title: Elastic Love / Background and development
caption_attribution_description: English: M.I.A. performing at Outside Lands 2009
context_page_description: "Elastic Love" is a song recorded by American recording artist Christina Aguilera, taken from her sixth studio album, Bionic. The song was written by Aguilera, M.I.A., John Hill and Switch, while production was handled by the latter two. Originally, "Elastic Love" was recorded by M.I.A., but later it was given to Aguilera. However, M.I.A. was disappointed when Aguilera didn't want to do her "trademark warbling" in the studio. "Elastic Love" is an electro and electropop song with strong elements from 1980s new wave music. Lyrically, Aguilera compares her love to office supplies, from paperclips to rubber-bands.
  Upon its release, "Elastic Love" received favorable reviews from music critics, who praised the track's composition, its musical style and M.I.A.'s appearance on the song. Most of them praised it as the stand-out track on Bionic, while some of whom compared Aguilera's vocals on "Elastic Love" to those of M.I.A. and Gwen Stefani. The track was listed as the twelfth best song of 2010 by Amazon.com.
context_section_description: On the Asian leg of Aguilera's Back to Basics Tour during the summer of 2007, Aguilera revealed that her upcoming album would be "short, sweet and completely different" from her previous long-play Back to Basics (2006). After the birth of her son, Aguilera stated in an interview with Ryan Seacrest that her forthcoming album would include a totally new aspect of herself as an artist, because of the pregnancy with her son. During an interview with People in 2008, Aguilera stated that she was going to start recording new material for her forthcoming album at her home in Beverly Hills. On the album, which was titled Bionic, Aguilera was inspired by electronica music, which she heard a lot during her pregnancy.
  
  British-Tamil recording artist M.I.A. was one of the songwriters of "Elastic Love". According to her, "Elastic Love" was the first track that she recorded, even before she started working on her debut album. She added, "It's the one I made in-between taking time out and having a baby and starting mine". When was asked about why she agreed to work with Aguilera, M.I.A. revealed, "Other people were involved who I respect like Peaches and it was like a sea of women coming together to write this new thing. Christina had also had a baby, you know, so it was kind of an interesting situation". Aguilera's decision not to perform her "trademark warbling" while recording the song disappointed M.I.A., as she detailed in an interview with MTV News UK:
  I really thought I was going to be able to go in there and get her vocals on to the next level and she didn't want to do it. She was like 'You might think that's great because it's not what you do, but to me I'm really bored of it'. It's interesting getting to work with people who can do things vocally that you can't...  but yeah I only heard the song for the first time when everyone else did.
caption: British-Tamil recording artist M.I.A. (photo) wrote "Elastic Love"
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